OK we are a pariah state..what next?

On August 7 of this year Israel ‘s Strategic Affairs Ministry Director Sima Vaknin told the Knesset that Israel is is perceived a “pariah state” in the international community, adding that the ministry intends to reverse this stance in the next decade.

This is only news to those who bury their heads in the sand.These are the National Post and the Toronto Sun who represent the tribe, never the universal ethical values of Judaism. All these are foreign to them.I t’s those damn Palestinians. Israel is always the aggrieved, the victim, never the propagator of egregious crimes. You cannot get to these people. They would personally never tolerate a day under the incessant Palestinian occupation. If course, they have never visited the West Bank or Gaza on the brink of starvation, they are tribalists. They do not have to see. They know.

As a longtime friend of the Jewish community, as indeed as one once honoured by Bnai Brith for my pioneering work in Canada for teaching the Nazi holocaust, I am pained to see Israel descend to such depths. I take no pleasure at all in this. I want Israel to succeed. nobody wins as long as occupation stands

In the last 25 years we have seen the curtain pulled back on the unremitting and callous humiliation of the Palestinian people. With the advent of the internet, cell phones, Facebook et al ,Israel’s cruel brutalization of an indigenous people has become manifest to all people of conscience. For me who grew up in the bosom of the Jewish community it has taken me decades to unravel the mystery of thow he victims of the Nazi genocide could subject the Palestinian people to war criminal policies of mass deportations,, transfer and ethnic cleansing.

It is heart warming to see so many Jews of conscience speaking against occupation.

it is staggering to see the harassment of teachers like Nadia Shoufani pilloried for appearing in public and virtually parroting Canada’s opposition to Israel’s increasing theft of Palestinian territory.

It is embarrassing to see Jewish organizations attempting to shut down the civil rights of a citizen.To B’nai Brith and the Wiesenthal Centre I say Shonda. Shame on you for your disgusting harrassment of a canadian citizen.You need to get in touch with the beautiful deep wells of universal Judaism insteId of a worn out Zionism. You need to remember the Exodus message (22:21) of not oppressing a foreigner as you were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. Your support for the present day apartheid-like policies of Israel is a form of idolatry with Israel replacing God and Judaism’s universal moral and ethical values.

Call off your crude witch hunts. You are on the wrong side of history. Do everything you can to bring Israel to its senses. Right now you and organizations like AIPAC are doing immense damage to Israel.Nobody wishes to delegitimize Israel. it simply wants the state to live up to its 1948 promise:

“It will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex.”

That idealist vision is betrayed daily in Israel. such hollow, hypocritical words.

Nadia Shoufani and Christians like her are merely responding to the call not only of Jews of Conscience but the entire Christian leadershp in Palestine who wrote in 2009 (the Kairos document).

Our word is a cry of hope, with love, prayer and faith in God. We address it first of all to ourselves and then to all the churches and Christians in the world, asking them to stand against injustice and apartheid, urging them to work for a just peace.”

We proclaim our word based on our Christian faith and our sense of Palestinian belonging – a word of faith, hope and love.We declare that the military occupation of Palestinian land constitutes a sin against God and humanity. Any theology that legitimizes the occupation and justifies crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people lies far from Christian teachings.

A pariah state can only be redeemed by ending this cruel occupation not by attacking and scapegoating Canadian citizens who are defending international law and the right to resist oppression.